n'
on the way home he laid undher the hidge an' shlept awhile, thin riz an'
walked on. So as he was walkin', he seen a Luricawne in the grass be the
road a-mendin' his brogues. So he shlipped up an' got him fast enough, an'
thin made him tell him where was his goold. The Luricawne tuk him to nigh
the place in the break o' the hills an' was goin' fur to show him, when
all at wanst Mike heard the most outprobrious scraich over the head av him
that 'ud make the hairs av ye shtand up like a mad cat's tail.

"'The saints defind me,' says he, 'phat's that?' an' he looked up from the
Luricawne that he was carryin' in his arrums. That minnit the little
attomy wint out av his sight, fur he looked away from it an' it was gone,
but he heard it laugh when it wint an' he niver got the goold but died
poor, as me father knows, an' he a boy when it happened."

Although the Leprechawns are skilful in evading curious eyes, and, when
taken, are shrewd in escaping from their captors, their tricks are
sometimes all in vain, and after resorting to every device in their power,
they are occasionally compelled to yield up their hidden stores, one
instance of which was narrated by a Galway peasant.

"It was Paddy Donnelly av Connemara. He was always hard at work as far as
anny wan seen, an' bad luck to the day he'd miss, barrin' Sundays. When
all 'ud go to the fair, sorra a fut he'd shtir to go near it, no more did
a dhrop av dhrink crass his lips. When they'd ax him why he didn't take
divarshun, he'd laugh an' tell thim his field was divarshun enough fur
him, an' by an' by he got rich, so they knewn that when they were at the
fair or wakes or shports, it was lookin' fur a Leprechawn he was an' not
workin', an' he got wan too, fur how else cud he get rich at all."

And so it must have been, in spite of the denials of Paddy Donnelly,
though, to do him justice, he stoutly affirmed that his small property was
acquired by industry, economy, and temperance. But according to the
opinions of his neighbors, "bad scran to him 't was as greedy as a pig he
was, fur he knewn where the goold was, an' wanted it all fur himself, an'
so lied about it like the Leprechawns, that's known to be the biggest
liars in the world."

The Leprechawn is an old bachelor elf who successfully resists all efforts
of scheming fairy mammas to marry him to young and beautiful fairies,
persisting in single blessedness even in exile from his kind, being driven
off as a punishme